Ferrari 488 Spider revealed. Does it look good!
{{favouriteCount}}

It’s all too easy to be blasé about cars like this. Ferrari revealed the 458, then the 458 Spider which was the same but had a folding hard top. The 488 GTB was just a rebodied 458 so the 488 Spider is going to be the same, with a folding hard top, boring boring. But then you see it and you’re bouncing up and down in your chair like an excitable 10yr old – damn it looks good doesn’t it?

Taking the new bodywork found on the 488 GTB the 488 Spider somehow turns up the styling to ‘stop dead in the street and drool’ levels. So you have the same reworked front end with a wide, open front bumper with active aerodynamics, a vented bonnet and new sleeker headlights. The side features the same huge intakes as the GTB to feed the engine with enough air and you get the same rear end with the spaced out lights, vents and two central exhaust pipes – possibly the best Ferrari rear end of recent times. But you now get the added glamour of the fixed buttresses behind the seats and the neat folding hardtop roof that stows away under the rear deck. What that gives you is a truly stunning looking vehicle, especially in the blue in the press shots – which is made even better by it having normal silver wheels – too often they have black or diamond cut wheels.

Of course the biggest news for the 488 GTB was the adoption of the new 3.9 litre twin turbo V8 in place of the old naturally aspirated unit and it remains here unchanged – which means a staggering 660bhp and 561lb/ft of torque. Although the Spider weighs 50kg more than the GTB, it’s 10kg lighter than the 458 Spider and the new power means the 0 – 62mph time of 3.0 seconds is the same, though the 0 – 124mph time is 0.3 seconds slower at 8.7. The top speed is 203mph with the roof up.

The 488 Spider will make its public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September and goes on sale in early 2016 at around £205,000. We can expect Lamborghini to reveal a Huracan Spider pretty soon too as they won’t want Ferrari to keep all the limelight.